Young African elephants play in Ramat Gan safari park in Israel on Saturday. The Ramat Gan Zoological Center has the largest animal collection in the Middle East, with more than 1,600 different species of animals. -- PHOTO: REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

Saint2 : My encounters with elephants began in Thailand when I first backpacked the country with amazing Caucasian company. That was many years ago. Anyway, what I had learnt about elephants is that they are very sensitive creatures with superb memory. If you return to visit an elephant which you have know for long after many years, like decades, it will actually remember you. A story I was told on a trek in Northern Thailand goes like this. One elephant from a herd had slipped and fallen over the edge of a waterfall. The rest of the herd was so grieved that they too went forward and plunged to their doom. That spot, according to locals, was called something like The Valley Of Elephants. I used to have a picture of a signage in Thai but due to some freak accident, I lost the entire album of my best backpacking trip ever. But great memories stay with me like an elephant's!